Throwback Weekend at Darlington Raceway is one of the bigger weekends of the early part of the NASCAR season. Unfortunately, quite a few of the drivers are under the belief that the whole thing has become passe.
Sunday’s (April 6) race was something of a throwback in its own right. William Byron had the field covered for most of the day. Had he gotten a caution prior to the final round of stops under green, it’s possible that he could have led every lap.
A situation like that in NASCAR is rare, especially these days. There are a couple of ways in which you can treat it. One is to consider it the racing equivalent of a pitcher throwing a no-hitter. Another is to groan about it. This is how Clint Bowyer perceived the race. It was clear to me that he wanted to see more action. Mike Joy and Kevin Harvick were somewhere in the middle.
It’s a situation in which you need to do your best to show a decent amount of action. During the time that Richard Petty was in the booth Sunday, he actually griped about the lack of action on the broadcasts. Specifically, he talked about the action further down the order that was seemingly the best on the track that you couldn’t see at home.
Joy noted that they try to show some of that when they can, then pitched it as an incentive to make the trip to the track. Unfortunately, doing that can conflict with some of the storylines that they planned to cover. On a day like Sunday, deviating might have been a good move.
Sure, it’s nice to go to a race, but most people don’t have that opportunity. The broadcasts are likely the only way that they’re going to be able to watch the sport. To emulate Muffy (Jami Gertz) from the 1982 CBS sitcom Square Pegs, it behooves FOX Sports to make its race broadcasts as exciting as possible.
As Petty indicated, this was another one of those events in which it was probably quite a bit better in person than it was on FOX Sports 1. NASCAR’s Loop Data indicates that overall passing was about equal to last year. That race had 16 lead changes as opposed to the four on Sunday. If you’re wondering, the four lead changes are tied for the least ever at Darlington with the 1950 Southern 500 (there’s also one race with unavailable lead change statistics).
Most of the discussion that I’ve read about the race talked about the importance of clean air. It isn’t anything that fans really want to hear much about. Now, if you had a tire advantage, you could definitely make waves. Ryan Blaney is proof of that when he made up 17 seconds on merit to snatch the lead away from Tyler Reddick. Outside of the pit sequences, it was hard to make moves.
There was only a little discussion of that fact on the broadcast. Viewers were likely aware of the lack of movement at times since the same guys were up front for much of the race. Then, after the caution during pit stops, another group came to the forefront.
FOX Sports did a great job showing what happened to Brad Keselowski on Sunday. Once again, the wheel nut issue came into play. The camera shots were perfect. You could see the nut fly off the car and cause the spin.
Brad Keselowski goes around! #NASCARonFS1 pic.twitter.com/xn02vNatBg
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) April 6, 2025
Keselowski did an excellent job getting the car back to the pits without the wheel coming off. He ultimately had to drive a little over a full lap without the nut on the right rear wheel to get back around. Yes, he had a flat tire by that point and he ended up three laps down, but we know that it could have been worse.
Now, I have no doubt that fans were upset that NASCAR threw the caution five laps later to retrieve the wheel nut before the round of stops was complete, given where the nut came to rest. That ultimately swung the race and trapped a number of contenders (Ryan Preece, Bubba Wallace, etc.) a lap down. None of them were able to get back in contention after taking the wave around. Byron avoided this fate since he hadn’t pitted yet when the yellow came out.
Prior to the race, there were two pieces of note on NASCAR RaceDay. One saw Joey Logano talking about how he originally learned how to race at Darlington. As an 18-year-old rookie, he got one-on-one instruction from the late Cale Yarborough, a man who was local to Darlington for most of his life and today has an interchange on Interstate 95 named after him. Pretty much the perfect man to ask for advice.
We also heard from a couple of the NASCAR Alumni present at the track this weekend. In a Frontstretch YouTube video, Ron Hornaday Jr. did not hold back regarding what he thinks about some of the up-and-coming drivers. Thankfully, Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race had much less in the way of shenanigans as compared to Martinsville Speedway.
Post-race coverage was relatively brief. Viewers got interviews with Byron, Blaney and Denny Hamlin. FS1 might have wanted to talk to Reddick as well, but I don’t think he talked to anyone after the race. There was also some post-race analysis before FOX Sports left Darlington.
I came away from Sunday’s race still a bit frustrated in regard to the action shown. I get that clean air was an issue. It can be from time to time, but I don’t know if I’ve heard it mentioned this much in Cup since the Next Gen car showed up.
That said, this race looked boring at times. It’s never great to hear discussion of a race being a dud, but I’m sure that there was action to be had. As Petty said, you have to look for it. For much of Sunday’s race, FS1 didn’t look for it. That frustrates me and more than likely frustrated Petty as well.
That’s all for this week. Next weekend is going to be a very busy weekend. NASCAR has a tripleheader at Bristol Motor Speedway. NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series teams will race Friday night, followed by Xfinity on Saturday. The Cup Series will race for 500 laps on Sunday afternoon.
Outside of Bristol, this weekend is the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. The NTT IndyCar Series is the main show there, but the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and GT America powered by AWS are on the undercard. Formula 1 will also make its annual visit to Bahrain with Formula 2 and Formula 3 in support. TV listings can be found here.
We will have a critique of Sunday’s Food City 500 in next week’s edition of Couch Potato Tuesday here at Frontstretch. The Critic’s Annex will cover Saturday’s Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help A Hero 200 for the Xfinity Series.
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Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the site's FREE e-mail newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the site's Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.